Pro-Choicers Told to Rethink

Julia Duin

Pro-choice activists need to rethink "the value of the fetus" to reach middle-of-the-road voters, says Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice in the winter issue of her group's magazine.

Her 7,400-word essay "Is There Life After Roe?" admits the legitimacy of parental-notification laws -- "Surely we agree that young women aged 13, 14, 15 (and even older) need their parents at this time?" -- and criticizes support by liberals for partial-birth abortion.

"We failed miserably to touch on the broader unrest about abortion itself that the procedure raised in the minds of many," says Mrs. Kissling, the nation's most prominent pro-choice advocate among Catholics.

"The movement, some felt, has gone too far when it defends such gruesome procedures. I am
convinced that the negative reaction, for example, of some Catholic leaders to Senator Kerry's
candidacy to the presidency was based on his opposition to banning this procedure," she writes.